2023 - A Year Of Live
Reflecting on my busiest ever annual performance schedule - taking in cathedrals, cafes, arts centres, village halls, an undergound former swimming pool, a Finnish cabin and more...
2023 has been a wonderful year of performing, touring and playing my music to many thousands of people. It is a privilege I will never taken for granted, especially after live shows became a distant memory during lockdowns of previous years.
Over the last year, I have done:
Whilst we can all get Wrapped up in sharing our listener data in Spotify’s cunning annual how-many-streams-did-you-get free marketing campaign, these are the kind of stats I can get behind sharing.
Nothing gives me greater pleasure than playing live shows and doing the equivalent of one per week across the year is very pleasing, and especially the number of places I have able to get to, many for the first time.
I know a number of you who are subscribers here have connected with me at some point this year as a result of coming along to a live show, and I want to take the opportunity to say thank you again for coming along, and for your interest and support in what I am doing.
Some particular live highlights in 2023 include playing opening support slots for three artists I really love and admire: Submotion Orchestra, Neil Cowley and Niklas Paschburg, in Bristol, Manchester and London respectively.
On the continent, two shows in particular highlight the wide variety of places and spaces where my music fits well:
Firstly, Domusela - the church building of the former Mariënhage Monastery in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. This took the form of a “lie-down concert”, which was a different experience from a performance perspective, but a very enjoyable one.
Quite possibly the cosiest, warmest and friendliest show of the whole year was an evening spent with the heroes at Otwarta Pracownia in Warsaw. A social enterprise and events space based in one of the Finnish cabins in the Jazdów area of the Polish capital (sent over as part of the reparations following the second world war), it’s a truly wonderful place and community of people, primarily run by volunteers, offering language classes, hosting events, and providing a safe and welcoming place.
It’s hard to put into words how lovely an evening we had there together. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
Piano Day saw me travelling to Belgium to perform alongside my friends Daniel & Sebastian of Brueder Selke, Midori Hirano and Cedric Vermue at CC30 Wagehuys in Leuven, before heading to Düsseldorf in Germany to take part in a weekend of shows curated by my friends Tom Blankenberg and Raffael Seyfried, taking place in an underground former swimming pool which now serves as an art gallery, which was designed by Paul Schneider-Esleben, the architect father of Paul Schneider, a founder member of Kraftwerk. Again, you’ll just have to take my word for it!
The fundamental principle the above has taught me is that whilst our perceptions and appreciation of live musical performance is, of course, always affected and influenced by the context and environment in which we experience it, we can always dream bigger and bolder for where these events can take place, and how we can work to ensure these are special, life-giving moments that hopefully live long in the memory.
As such, this helped to solidify the rationale behind the extensive 28-date Autumn Tour I have just completed across the UK. It extended not just to the venue and context these shows took place in, but also helped me to dream big about the places I could visit and take my music to.
I love travelling; seeing new places and meeting new people, and I was keen to ensure that I wasn’t just visiting the obvious big cities, which are so often the only places that touring musicians visit, but to head to places that are off the beaten track - why shouldn’t everyone have access to live music rather than always going into the big cities?
This culminated in some very special trips, shows and experiences, not least including my visit to Scotland to play on the Kintyre peninsula and over the water to the Isle of Mull…
What is most important, though, is meeting and connecting with like-minded people, and sharing good times together through music. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to do this, and I am already working hard to build on this for next year. As ever, if you know of a good venue/promoter, or want to host a living room show, do get in touch with your ideas!
Let me know when you're coming to New York!